This article, and the two that follow,
are from the web site Labor Tuesday for Jan. 21, 2003. They have been
edited for Labor Standard.

It’s not clear that the hundred or so trade
unionists that gathered in Chicago on Jan. 11 to form an antiwar committee
expected to get much attention from the mainstream press. But two mainstream
papers have sat up and taken notice that a relatively small number of unionists
have organized to oppose the government’s looming attack on Iraq.

True, the press reports aren’t on the front
page, but they’re not buried with the obituaries either. It would be nice if
the friendly press accounts indicated an antiwar stance in the papers’
editorial rooms, but whatever it means, we can be sure the papers recognize the
inherent social power of organized labor—and the power of the strike. Sure the
new antiwar group can’t yet claim to speak for a majority of labor, but then
most majorities start out a minority.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Jan. 14) ran
a relatively comprehensive report about the new antiwar labor group and its
intention to “put organization and money behind what have been mostly spontaneous,
grass-roots activities.” The paper reported that “union contingents from
California, Seattle, New York, Washington, and Florida, as well as labor
activists from St. Louis and other cities raised $30,000 to set up a group
called U.S. Labor Against War [USLAW]. They passed a resolution against an
‘unprovoked war with Iraq,’ and they plan to send protestors to anti-war
Marches in Washington and San Francisco. They also hope to enlist the support
of 200 local unions in the next few weeks.”

The paper reported that Herb Johnson,
secretary-treasurer of the 260,000-member Missouri AFL-CIO said that if USLAW
“ask [us] to do something, we’ll endeavor to get people together and join some
kind of concerted effort. It’s going to be an unprecedented thing for the
United States to go and initiate an armed conflict. We’re all red-blooded
Americans, but I have not read any evidence that this lousy fellow over there
is the one who attacked us on September 11.”

The San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 16)
reported that “Saturday's rallies in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and other
cities come a week after 100 labor leaders from around the country—including
several from the Bay Area—met in Chicago to plan how to sway their memberships
toward opposing a possible war with Iraq and assume a bigger role in the
anti-war effort. So labor union banners will be a highly visible presence at
Saturday's march and rally afterward at the Civic Center.”

The paper estimated that the Bay Area “march
down Market Street and to the Civic Center will include representatives of more
than 50 Bay Area labor unions—twice as many as attended October's big anti-war
demonstration along the city's main drag.”

"Labor’s support is a boon to peace
activists, who know that the image of longshoremen and nurses speaking out
against a possible war in Iraq puts a 'real people' face on their message.”

While the Chicago group won’t find their task an
easy one, David Moberg reported in Z magazine (Dec. 6) that already
there is substantial antiwar feeling among unionists. “But opposition to the
Iraq war has drawn more mainstream labor backing, including the Washington
State Labor Council, Electrical Workers, New York state nurses, the Wisconsin
SEIU, the California Federation of Teachers, Pride at Work (the AFL-CIO gay
workers organization), New Mexico carpenters, and central labor councils from
such cities as San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, California; Albany, Troy
and Rochester, New York; and Duluth, Minnesota.”

APWU Joins Ranks of Unions Against the War

Since the Chicago meeting of Jan. 11, several
union organizations have adopted antiwar resolutions, including the National
Executive Board of the American Postal Workers Union.

Gerry Zero, the principal officer of Teamsters
Local 705, which hosted the Chicago gathering, told the Post-Dispatch
that the degree of antiwar feeling is “quite unusual. It’s early, it’s very
early, no military action has started yet, and people are really organizing
against this thing.”

Peace Sentiment Echoes Ever Louder in
Cleveland Labor Movement

by Jerry Gordon

Jerry Gordon, a well-known Cleveland
unionist, was a staff representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers
Union for twenty-three years.

On January 12, about a thousand people packed
one of the largest and best-known African American churches in Cleveland. One
of the featured speakers was John Ryan, executive Secretary of the Cleveland
AFL-CIO. Ryan made a strong presentation, condemning the war for oil and
forcefully stating “it will be working class youth who will be doing the
fighting and dying.”

On January 14, GE workers in Cleveland held a
big rally on the first day of their two-day strike opposing employer cost
shifting on health care. Rev. Marvin McMickle, whose church hosted the rally
held two days previously, told several hundred workers, “It's a disgrace that
the government is willing to spend $100–$200 billion for a war against Iraq,
but is not willing to spend anywhere near that sum to guarantee health care for
all of our people.” This remark drew loud and sustained applause.

The Cleveland Citizen is the oldest labor
newspaper in the country and is now in its 113th year of publication. It is
published by the Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council AFL-CIO.

The paper's editor and general manager is Bill
Obbagy, who was a featured speaker at the first big rally of the Northeast Ohio
Anti-War Coalition (NOAC)on November 16 opposing the U.S. war on Iraq. By then,
the Citizen had already printed antiwar articles.

The front page of the January edition of the Citizen
has a huge cartoon divided into four blocks, each of which contains a
caricature of Dick Cheney. The first block says, “Dick Cheney, Secretary
of Defense under Bush I, helps to destroy Iraq’s oilfields.” Cheney is saying, “Bombs
away! Take that, Saddam!”

The final box says, “Dick Cheney, CEO of (fill
in later, Inc.) makes more millions in helping to rebuild Iraq’s oilfields?”
Cheney comments, “Hey, a guy’s gotta think about his future…”

On an inside page, the Citizen runs a
caricature of Bush lampooning him for claiming that “to protect civilization
from terrorism we must invade Iraq.” The paper asks, “And all that oil your oil
buddies would then get to pump?” Bush answers, “Just a happy coincidence.”

Below this cartoon is an article titled, “Cleveland
AFL-CIO Joins Move Against Iraq War.” The article quotes from the Federation’s
antiwar resolution passed unanimously at its December meeting and then details
reports of similar resolutions passed by other labor bodies, including AFSCME’s
International Executive Board on December 12.

This writer vividly recalls an antiwar rally
held in Cleveland's Public Square a decade ago, protesting then the U.S. war
against Iraq. The 1,500 people who turned out suddenly found themselves
confronted by a large crowd of hostile building trades workers who supported
the war. A huge brawl appeared imminent but was averted.

How things have changed! Demonstrations by
antiwar forces in this period draw friendly reaction on an almost universal
scale. All sections of the Cleveland labor movement today are increasingly
gripped by peace fever and express support for the antiwar movement.

In over 50 years of antiwar activity, dating
back to Korea, I entertained the hope that someday labor would not only would
be part of the peace movement but actually lead it. But not even during the
highest point of the Vietnam antiwar movement, when in January 1973 the
Cleveland AFL-CIO finally passed a resolution calling for the immediate and
unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the area, has there been
anything even remotely resembling what we are seeing today.

Antiwar sentiment in the ranks of Cleveland
labor will surely deepen as the consequences of the looming bloodbath in Iraq
become all the more clear.

Hard-selling the Dockers Pact

by Charles Walker

As this is written, the results of the tentative
agreement between the ILWU and the maritime bosses have not been revealed. The
vote tallies are to be announced in a few days. No one I know is forecasting
that the proposed deal will be turned down.

Nevertheless, that hasn’t prevented the union’s
top leaders from telling the ranks that disaster is in store for the union
should they vote the pact down. Admittedly, their one-sided argument for
acceptance is scary. On the other hand, so is their single-minded attempt to
scare the ranks into believing that they have no other rational course.

Although there is opposition to the deal that
was negotiated under the aegis of the Taft-Hartley Act, there’s no evidence
that an organized opposition has come together. Usually, that means that a
contract will be ratified, if only because the proponents are organized and the
opposition is not. Still, the union’s leaders have chosen to sell the members
on the compact, not just on its alleged merits, but on the fearful consequences
they say will follow a rejection by the ranks.

“What we cannot do is cast ourselves as rebels
looking to defy the federal government,” the leadership has told the ranks.
“And this is exactly what we would accomplish by voting down the Memorandum of
Understanding [MOU]…

“[O]nce again, the Administration has made it
clear: another West Coast trade disruption will not be tolerated.” Moreover,
“If anyone thinks they can get more by voting ‘no’ and going back into
negotiations [as some opponents have urged], keep dreaming, you’re wrong.”

Despite the rising opposition to the
administration’s war against Iraq, the union’s tops rest their case for
ratifying the agreement on the “conservative” mood of the American people. “We
live in conservative times; our society is very conservative, good jobs are
scarce and hard to find, and politicians are sensitive to this. As a result,
legislators weigh the conservative factor first, then make their decisions.”

Moreover, the leaders plainly say that the union
and its allies are helpless to help themselves without the support of the
Democratic Party. “Just look at the Democrats who cross party lines and vote
with Bush on so many different issues. Who do you think,” the ILWU leaders cry
out, “is going to protect us or even feel sorry for us, with public opinion
already dead set against us, when an issue resurfaces painting us as a bunch of
overpaid and spoiled workers who already enjoy wages and benefits far above the
average American Worker and now demand more?”

The leaders’ fearful words today stand in sharp
contrast with their defiant cries to beat back both the bosses and the Bush
administration before they cut their deal with the shipping and terminal
bosses.

Back in July, the union’s president, James
Spinosa, declared, “When we exercise our rights to collectively bargain new
contracts with better wages and conditions, when we enforce those rights the
only way we can by collectively withdrawing our labor, they claim we are
unpatriotic. But these are our legal rights. There is nothing unpatriotic about
American workers insisting on their rights under American law.” (Quoted in the People’s
Weekly World, July 6.)

“The entire American labor movement sees the
ILWU contract as important. Everybody knows if the ILWU gets hammered, every
other contract is in jeopardy,” said ILWU spokesman, Steve Stallone (quoted in
the San Francisco Chronicle, July 25).

Moreover, the Teamsters union and the
International Longshoremen’s Association, representing the East and Gulf
coasts, declared they would stand with the West Coast dockers. “Teamsters
President James P. Hoffa promised that his 1.4 million members, who drive the
trucks that deliver and pick up goods from the port, would honor and join any
picket line set up by the dock workers,” according to an Associated Press
report of June 28, 2002. The Marine Union of Australia and the International
Transport Workers’ Federation also declared their solidarity.

Labor journalist David Bacon has written that
the government’s so-called war on terrorism has caused “the entire terrain of
labor negotiations [to shift] dramatically in favor of business, and many unions
may find themselves facing federal intervention in the months to come” now that
“[i]nterruptions of economic activity…are [considered] a threat to national
security.” Perhaps Bacon is correct. Certainly, the ILWU’s decision not to
strike in defense of the right to strike reinforces the adverse shift of power
that Bacon rightly deplores.

There’s speculation that, from the beginning,
the ILWU leaders never intended to strike the dock bosses. That theory was
fueled by the fact that the union’s leaders never asked the ranks to take a
strike vote. Although the union’s caucus, representing the affected locals in
29 ports, and the union negotiators had their own power to call a strike, the
ranks were never given a chance to throw their weight into the balance.

Could the ranks’ voice have made a difference in
the outcome? It did in 1934, when the union militantly won its spurs, and again
in 1948 and 1971, when it fought back against the imposition of the
Taft-Hartley Act. But in those days the union’s leadership didn’t tell the
ranks, “What we cannot do is cast ourselves as rebels looking to defy the
federal government.”